


What’s in a name

by shallowness



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Babyfic, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:59:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallowness/pseuds/shallowness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: Not mine, transformative use!<br/>Author's Notes:<br/>Written for:<br/></p><div class="center">
<br/><div class="center">
<br/><i>♥ <a href="http://hermette.livejournal.com/328163.html">Multi-Fandom Fluff Meme!</a> ♥</i>
<br/></div>
<br/></div><p>This is a little <span class="ljuser"><a href="http://helsinkibaby.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://helsinkibaby.dreamwidth.org/"><b>helsinkibaby</b></a></span>’s fault for pointing me to this meme (except not really, because this was floating around in my brain and a it was good excuse to get it out of my system). Spoilers for season 2.</p>
    </blockquote>





	What’s in a name

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, transformative use!  
> Author's Notes:  
> Written for:  
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
>   
> _♥[Multi-Fandom Fluff Meme!](http://hermette.livejournal.com/328163.html) ♥_   
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> This is a little [](http://helsinkibaby.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**helsinkibaby**](http://helsinkibaby.dreamwidth.org/) ’s fault for pointing me to this meme (except not really, because this was floating around in my brain and a it was good excuse to get it out of my system). Spoilers for season 2.

In the last week, she said that she would call the baby Patience if she were a girl.

Tom looked up from his newspaper.

"What? I thought we'd-"

"Don't worry. I’m tired of waiting, that’s all," Sybil said.

"They say it won't be long now," Tom replied. "Look, you might be interested in reading this."

The last week, she wasn't capable of much beyond reading and waiting. She wished for her mother sometimes, over the sea, but she could say at much to Tom, and that helped.

And then her life changed again. She was exhausted, but not so much that she couldn't muster up the smugness to say, "I knew she'd be a girl."

Tom looked up from the baby he held in his arms - theirs - and she couldn't help but smile back in kind.

"Say hello to your Da, little Gwen," he said, and while she still smiled, Sybil now found herself crying too.

Her family sent telegrams and letters full of promises of packages and visits. Granny wanted to know whether Gwen was short for Gwendolen or Guinivere.

"Neither!" Sybil exclaimed, waving her sister's note and looking down at the crib. "It's not short for anything. You're Gwen, Gwen Mary Edith Branson, and Mama shouldn't be getting quite so excited, because you're meant to be sleeping, aren't you, darling? So she'll just lower her voice into a whisper and send a very polite message to Granny in her letter back to Downton Abbey. And one day Mama will take you there to her old home, but that's not all, Gwen, because then your father and I mean to show you the whole wide world."

FIN


End file.
